Modern history has a peculiar way of producing national trauma. In a mass media environment where world events have never been more visible, national tragedy takes on a new character. Rather than reading a summary in a newsprint, a nation’s citizenry can experience these tragedies in real time. Nearly 60 years after the fact, there is still a profound feeling of dread surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. There are few singular events that loom more heavily in the American consciousness in the past century, the horrifying images of the Zapruder film burned into the memories of an entire generation of young Americans. The unanswered questions linger. Though the government continues to accept The Warren Commission as the final word on the assassination, staggeringly few Americans believe. One of those doubting Americans was filmmaker Oliver Stone, who in 1991 adapted Jim Garrison’s On the Trail of the Assassins into his magnum opus, JFK. The movie follows Louisiana District Attorney Jim Garrison as he attempts to unravel a conspiracy of American intelligence services, mafia bosses and exiled Cuban militants involved in the assassination. Both Garrison and the film are the subjects of much controversy from a historical perspective. The intention of this review is not to debate JFK’s historical accuracy, but rather assess it as a work of filmmaking. Judged purely from this perspective, JFK is Stone’s best film, a furiously paced, meticulously edited, star-studded thriller that manages to feel like a rousing call to civic action.
One of JFK’s most brilliant qualities is the sharp and unique editing style Stone employs through the film. That style is perfectly attuned to the film’s nonstop stream of information: every time Garrison discovers a new thread to the conspiracy Stone cuts to a brief glimpse of what’s been hidden. These sequences are often shot in a stark black and white, further enhancing the foreboding mood as the conspiracy unravels. Furthermore the film often makes callbacks to these scenes, elongating them at times and shortening them at others, whenever the thread links to another strand of the conspiracy. What results is a film that puts you directly in Garrison’s head, piecing together a morbid puzzle of cover ups, half-truths and shady connections. It takes exposition that could have been extremely dry and makes it the film’s strongest asset, the rapid-fire editing dovetailing perfectly with Garrison’s increasing obsession and sense of urgency. These editing montages also do a lot to lend historical context to the investigation. The film’s opening treats us to a montage of the fateful day in Dealey Plaza from all angles, including newsreel footage, the Zapruder film and Stone’s own footage. Later on, when Garrison meets with former intelligence operative ‘Mr. X’, there is a similar montage of America’s turn towards war in Vietnam following the Kennedy assassination. Sequences like this ground the personal drama of Garrison’s investigation in the broader social strife of the 60’s.
Stone’s superb direction is also bolstered by a truly incredible cast. A veritable who’s who of 90’s favorites make an appearance; Kevin Costner, Joe Pesci, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, Ed Asner, John Candy, Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland all turn in wonderful performances. Costner’s performance in particular, exaggerated Louisiana accent aside, is one of the strongest of his career. Always at his best in somber, authoritative roles Costner gives Garrison an air of credible authority and human vulnerability. The film goes to great lengths to show the strain the investigation puts on Garrison’s domestic life. His obsession with the case creates a rift with his wife Leah Ziegler (played by Spacek) and the national attention the case garners in its final stages makes Garrison a target of anonymous harassment and infiltration of his investigation by the FBI. Joe Pesci also turns in a very memorable performance as David Ferrie, a mobster and former CIA gun runner who becomes a target of Garrison’s investigation. He becomes the main conduit through which Garrison uncovers the broader assassination conspiracy, and Pesci’s frantic, paranoid performance encapsulates his character as a loose cannon on borrowed time.
The various plot lines come to a climax in the courtroom scene where Garrison lays out his case for JFK’s assassination being a conspiracy. In the film’s most dramatic scene Stone’s exceptional direction shines the most brightly. Intercutting from the film’s various threads, the sequence echoes the film’s opening scene in Dallas, reconstructing the JFK assassination in real time. The composite style editing Stone has used throughout the film reaches new heights, as Garrison runs through both the official account of the assassination and his own theory, the editing highlighting the discrepancies with a frantic cinematic momentum. Whatever holes can be poked in the argument Garrison has made, there is nothing unconvincing about the filmmaking prowess on display. After three hours of dense plotting, revelations, reversals and rapidly increasing stakes the film demands that the audience take action in the face of a conspiracy that has infiltrated the highest offices of power in the United States. Garrison’s impassioned final speech about ‘[not] forgetting your dying king’ would verge on melodramatic if the final scene didn’t do such a strong job of communicating the personal, political and almost spiritual stakes on the line for everyone involved. It is on this basis that I consider JFK a great film, because regardless of where you stand on the assassination, the film is hugely ambitious and was crafted with a clarity of vision and purpose that is all too rare in contemporary films.
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